Kids in Motion

I helped my son’s teacher at school today, during a math test, and it was the loveliest hour I’ve had in weeks. Oh, the variations on a theme, like Pachelbel’s Canon, only in place of 3 violins and continuo basso, there were 23 bodies in motion, with accompanying paper, pencils, and plastic rulers. And contrary to the Canon's perfectly paced melodic additions, there was no slow building to a harmonic crescendo, but more of a steady variation of tempo, instruments and random sounds.

Feet tapped, stomped and shuffled under desks. Rulers were bent, tapped against heads, pressed against foreheads, chewed, scraped back and forth between teeth, held in the mouth, twirled in the air. Fingers were in mouths, between teeth, twirling hair, rubbing eyes, up one person’s nose. Pencils were in all the same places, as well as being tapped on the desk and under it, on restless legs. Some kids were still munching on an unfinished late morning snack. One’s head was bent so low over the paper her nose was almost to the desk. Scratch paper was crumpled, thrown on the floor. Pencils pinged when they fell to the floor. Glasses were taken off and put back on. Chairs scratched as the kids moved forward and backward in them. Hands (arms, whole sides of bodies, really) were raised as a call, the low murmur of the teacher helping kids read the question was the melodic response. My own shoes clicked on the linoleum floor as I went to different parts of the room to grade papers, check homework assignments, head out to copy the crossword puzzle that will come home as next week’s homework.

Despite the fidgeting and rhythmic movements, the room felt peaceful and purposeful. This teacher inspires kids to work hard, and even the ones who tend to struggle academically were engrossed in the test, regardless of how their bodies and test materials took flight. I was in the presence of young brains and young bodies hard at work. It was a joyous symphony. Twenty-three variations of the worst physical habits – any one of which is sure to be addressed all over town at tonight’s dinner table by parents who are horrified when they witness these socially inappropriate mannerisms. But tonight, when my son chews on his pencil or rubs the dry skin of his lips or starts to bounce a leg when reading, I’ll remember it’s not so unusual.

What it must take to socialize all this movement out of ourselves. Yet I wonder what we lose by binding the unbound energy in the exquisite variations of bodies and objects in motion.